🇺🇸 Watch United States of Anxiety Exclusively on the Free Ramsey Network App! On today’s episode, we hear about: · A wife struggling to navigate the holidays after a family brawl · A woman processing feelings of disappointment in her boyfriend · A son dealing with his estranged father’s expectations Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John's Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. 🌿 Get up to 40% off at Cozy Earth with code DELONY. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne. 🥤 20% off at Organifi with code DELONY. · 🏔️ Head to Poncho Outdoors to check out all their styles! Listen to More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How did a family brawl impact the holidays?
Like they did a duel? Like for your heart or affection? What happened?
No. So the backstory is this. My husband and I have been together 10 years, married five. Um, roughly about five or six years ago, his brother started to act like I didn't exist in the world. Um, in the beginning when it happened, I kind of thought, well, maybe he was having a bad day, but then it continued to happen.
Um, and something happened to precipitate this or he just started ignoring you.
He just started ignoring me. Nothing happened pre this, um, in the years before this happened. Um, And I would bring it up to my husband as like, hey, did you see that too? And he's not a confrontational person. So sometimes he'd be like, well, he didn't say hi to me either. But it started to get where it was more obvious and obvious. Years would go by, I would say something.
Chapter 2: What triggered the conflict between the husband and brother?
And then I got to my threshold and basically told my husband he needs to say something because it's his brother. And so they did it at Thanksgiving last year. And when my husband confronted him, his brother said some very rude things about me. And so my husband punched him.
And then that turned into a verbal argument for about 30 minutes that I too also engaged with because his wife jumped in and started to attack my husband. And I wasn't going to let that happen. Pretty much. That's how it felt. And then since that, like we left, His brother said some very mean things about me. He called me a lot of names.
We've unfortunately had four miscarriages, and he threw that in my face and said we didn't lose anything. We didn't lose any babies. And when he said that, I thought my husband was really going to murder him. Yeah, fair enough, dude. went into complete like anger rage. And I've never, my husband is a very laid back person. I've never seen him like that ever.
Was it kind of hot?
Um, yeah, a little bit. I told him afterwards, I was like, geez, it's nice to see the fight in you.
I knew it. I knew it.
But since then, you know, obviously we left and everybody's emotions were very high. Um, we, a week or two later went and went back to my, cause it's happened at my aunt's house. We went there and had a conversation with them and apologized to them about, like, what happened because it's still their home. And, you know, we kind of just told them then, like, we don't want to be around him.
We don't want to see him. We don't want to be around their family. And, you know, everybody, meaning my in-laws and my sister-in-law, who was also there, they all wanted to have this big conversation and this big meeting and have a family meeting, but it never happened. And this literally got swept under the rug and no one since then has brought it up.
Yeah. So this is simple. Your husband calls your brother. I mean, your husband calls his brother.
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Chapter 3: How should I handle family dynamics after a fight?
But we get the message. And there is the two male grownups acting like two male grownups. Right. And calling each other on the phone. And if the brother doesn't want to ask, you got all the answers you want. You got answers that you need. The thing that you guys can turn this and be real immature about it real fast is considering a one and a loss. If he gets to go, then he wins.
And if you don't get to go, you're lost. And if you start keeping score like that, then it's not going to be about healing a family. It's not going to be about people respecting and treating each other with dignity. It's going to be about winning and losing. And no relationship survives that. Okay. And so take the one loss nonsense off the table.
You're just going to get a real clear picture of everybody's revealed character. And fire does that. It reveals.
Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense because it's kind of, I mean, that's kind of how I, how I feel. It's kind of like, you know, he, he thinks he did nothing wrong. So he's going to just go and we have to sit with this, like this happened and nothing's been said about it or talked about. And it's still very real for me.
So listen, everybody lost, nobody won. So if he shows up all like, hell yeah, he shows up to this thing and y'all are gone. Everybody lost. He lost. Your parents lost. The cousins lost. Everybody lost. And if you all show up and there's no brother and it's like, yeah, he doesn't get to come here anymore because of what he said. Everybody lost. So take the one loss off. Okay.
What I want you guys, you and your husband to do is to A, be real sad about this.
and you guys reverse engineer what's a great Thanksgiving look like and it might be inviting some people from your office who don't have anywhere to go it might be what we do in my house we do it at Easter it's Easter of randos we got the wildest eclectic group of people songwriters lawn people bankers university executives my tattoo artist and her family I mean just random people it's so great
But in a perfect world, our families will all be here. They can't travel this far. So we're sad about that, and then we go do the next right thing.
Now, if we decided as a family to go, how would you say we should approach?
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of unresolved family conflict?
Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think that conversation's ever going to happen because his brother is not willing to have that.
I know, but I want your husband to be a person of character and integrity, somebody who stands up for his wife, and also somebody who tries to heal important relationships. Okay. I want him going to bed at night knowing I made three phone calls and he didn't respond. Okay.
I don't want him going to bed going, well, if I even call, he's not even going to answer it because nobody knows to make that call. Okay. But yeah, I would absolutely 1000% you are inviting trouble. And what do you do for a living?
I am a 911 operator.
Okay. I thought they had mentioned something about that. So, you know, 1016s, you know, domestics is where most people die. Right. Not doing that. Am I setting that up?
Right. And that's kind of how I felt. The way that I was raised and what I saw, I told my husband before we even had our daughter, I never want her to be in that type of environment. And so that means we have to cut people out. We cut people out.
Can I tell you one more weird thing? And I'll get some grief about this on the internet. There may come a time when you make peace with him going and you not. And him saying, I want to go see my mom and dad. And I know it's chaotic and wild and it's not giving in and it's not what I, but I want to go see my mom and dad. And you go, yeah, absolutely. Go see your mom and dad.
That's important for you to see them. As bad as they've treated, as bad as they fumbled this whole situation. And imagine they're a broken hearts. They got their two boys in the living room fighting and saying vile, evil things to each other and being powerless. And I just overcome like, fine.
There may be a season when, not this year, but there may be a season when you say, go see your mom and your dad. I'm not going to go. They've made it clear what they think about me, and that's fine. Go see your mom and your dad. And then when we come home, we'll do X, Y, and Z. I think that's fair, too. If y'all agree on that and y'all want to set that, he may say, no, forget that.
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Chapter 5: How can I support my partner after a traumatic event?
He still feels the same way that we reacted. He felt like we were dramatic where we just wanted to treat it the same as 99% of everyone who was running. Treat it seriously whether or not it's a joke or not in today's world.
Yeah. I don't mess around at all anymore. Not even a little bit.
Can I share something else too, Dr. Jones?
Share anything, of course.
I feel like I have felt in the past that he shows cowardly behavior in some situations, like with his family, like he's non-confrontational. And I think that that is also stemming from how I'm feeling about this particular situation.
Oh, you've watched him and watched him be cowardly in day-to-day interactions, and now all of a sudden he's mocking you because of how you protected yourself?
Correct.
Oh, gosh, yeah.
Are you married to this person? No. Engaged for five years. We've been together for eight. What's the holdup, yo? We both say, well, you know, we can do it tomorrow if we want to, but I guess neither one of us has made it a priority.
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Chapter 6: What are effective strategies for dealing with difficult family members?
Give me an example.
When we go to – or earlier on in our relationship – When we would go to family gatherings, you know, a family member might say something a little bit sideways. And I'm not one to cause a scene. I would never do that. I feel like that doesn't achieve anything. So my reaction is to talk to him after the fact. And he has said everything in order to avoid going to that family member to talk.
Say, hey, you know, you can't talk to her that way or you can't you shouldn't say that or whatever it might be. You know, one thing that he said was I was drunk. I didn't hear it. Or the next time was or she didn't mean it that way or like it's at the expense of how I feel. That's right. It's called gaslighting. Yeah.
Your feelings are always wrong. There's always an explanation for your feelings. But when he has feelings, they're right. And if you disagree with him, you're wrong for feeling that his feelings aren't right. It's a very immature way of go through the world. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to consider that this is a very revealing situation. a straw that breaks the camel's back.
And I'm not saying your relationship's over, but I'm saying it's time to set some things on the table because here's what's happening. I can feel it. It's festering inside of you. And you are sweet, Alyssa. You just, you don't want to fight. You like doing the next right thing. I could get married tomorrow if I wanted to.
I just, I got, I'm going to watch the new season of Dexter and just call it and go to the next thing, go to the next thing. You can just make your way through the life, but what's happening inside of you, is that your insides are starting to catch fire. And before you burn up, because that's what's going to happen, your secrets will kill you, not him. I think there's a truth telling.
There is a, hey, for five years we've been engaged. And you don't honor my feelings. You don't honor my fears. When I get scared, you make fun of me. When you get scared, you're like, oh, I was drunk. I didn't even pay attention. There's just a general sense of immaturity or a general sense of His world is all about him and feeling powerful and strong.
And if he can't feel powerful and strong, he dismisses you. And it's just not a partnership. That's not a two people creating something amazing together moving forward. And anytime somebody tells me like, oh, we've been engaged for three years, four years, five years, seven years. We just haven't got around to it. There's almost always a reason we haven't got around to it.
There's not a reason we've done it. There's a reason we haven't done it. And I think that's worth exploring. In your own heart, maybe go sit with a therapist and talk about it. Or sit down with him and say, hey, we need to just talk. You thought it was a joke and you were just walking around thinking kids were goofing off. Fine. I'm not going to judge you on that. But people got killed.
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Chapter 7: How do we navigate future family gatherings after conflict?
I can hear it. And so whatever you've done today or whatever you'll do tomorrow, this is the bravest thing you've done in a long time, and I'm proud of you, and I'm honored that you called me. Thanks, sir. Okay. Here's step number one. You have to decide to stop carrying his shame and his secrets around as though it's your burden. This is killing you.
The more you keep this a secret and you tell yourself that this is somehow a reflection of you, it's like you drinking poison and hope he gets sick. The secrets and the shame are killing you. I can hear it on you, man. And you can't buy houses out from under that. You can't out-earn that. You can't out-discipline yourself in the Navy out of that. Do you get what I'm saying? Does that resonate?
Yeah.
You've been carrying this for a long-ass time, haven't you?
I have, and it started when I was younger, like, protecting it from my friends, and then I would make these good friends, and then one day, Taylor's, um... Robbie isn't going to be able to come over anymore. And it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I found out why I felt like I worked so hard and every step he's taken away things from me that are out of my control.
And the one thing I can control is who I tell. Yeah.
Did your dad hurt your friends too?
I don't think so. I think it's just, they found out he was on the registry and it's like, I really want to believe for like everything in my body that it was a one time or whenever that went down before I was born and it ended there. But his actions, he's like done other weird things. Like when I've had girlfriends, he's like,
stocks they like social media and stuff and it's just like hard to find anything like if i were to have to defend this man in court i would not have a good case right and so you can hope and wish this was a one-time thing years ago but your gut tells you differently yeah and i want to challenge a core belief you have in the center of your chest is that all right yeah
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